Awkward and Thoroughly Kissable

No Thing Sunday, Vegas Style

Mr. Temple and I do something called No-Thing Sundays at home, wherein in we attempt to do as few things as possible. It sounds more intentional than Nothing Sundays, which to me sounds like you just kind of let the day slip by.

The Vegas version of a No-Thing Sunday involves rolling out of bed a the shiny our of 7:30, because jetlag’s a bitch. Fortunately, coffee fixes all grievances and a chocolate croissant is just the little bow on top.

At least the view from our room was pretty.

If Virginia is for lovers, then Vegas is for walkers. I know it’s easy to imagine the gamblers, slumped over their dwindling stack of chips, or endlessly pulling the slot machine handle in an ergonomically shaped lounger like the ones they had in Wall-E, the picture of sedentary zombification. But if you want to go anywhere on the Strip, most of the masses walk, and that shit is far, even if the sidewalks are equipped with escalators and breezeways to keep you moving. The walk from our palatial home at the Palazzo to dinner at the Cosmopolitan is a half hour, whether we liked it or not. So our Vegas No-Thing Sunday involved something our home No-Thing Sundays rarely do: physical exercise. Don’t tell my mom.

At least the food was good. Seriously, as someone who doesn’t gamble, I feel like my time in Vegas is mostly spent waiting for the next gourmet meal. Not that that’s a bad thing. Because between lunch’s onion rings and dinner’s…well…everything–I mean, look at this. It’s a tiny cone stuffed with eggplant, anchovies and red peppers. Delicious and adorable!–you’re going to eat.
The last component of our No-Thing Sunday (I know it sounds like a lot, but I promise there were also several hours of Storage Wars and lounging by the pool) was a late showing of Absinthe, in the red & white Spiegl-Tent at Caesar’s Palace. Mr. Temple and I saw a Spiegl show in Toronto about a million years ago and it was a hilarious mix of tits and old-timey burlesque variety acts. There even was a clown who read from the phone book and that shit was funny as hell.

The Absinthe version has been a bit Vegas-fied which oddly means there are fewer strip teases than I expected. Namely, there was one. And aside from that, the only other female acts were Wanda, the assistant MC, whose function seemed to be to find out how many graphic penis jokes she could squeeze into a 60-second bit, and Gertie, whose bondage gear and giant latex balloon act is both the stuff of nightmares and fantasies. After that, it was a spectacle of male athletic prowess. If you like your entertainment feature guys with eight-packs doing feats of strength (I count the jugglers and tap dancers in that group because, dude, they were working it), then this is the show for you! Honestly, there are so many plot bunnies in my head this morning! So much eye candy!

The humor is crude, they seem to be operating under the assumption that if they offend everyone equally (in addition to the penis shtick there were jokes about Muslims, Asians, lesbians, and Republicans), we’ll all leave laughing. But what Absinthe has going for it is that it’s actually very un-Vegas. The tent seats maybe 500 people. The special effects are non-existent. Stage hands scramble about picking up discarded clothing and assembling and disassembling the stage as needed. The ‘splash zone’ involves handing plastic sheeting to the folks in the first two rows and letting them fend for themselves as the extreme jugglers toss water bottles and the bathtub acrobat (the focal point of this morning’s plot bunnies) spins and spurts water like the world’s sexiest fountain…or possibly an erotic lawn sprinkler. In short, 9/10 would recommend to anyone who is feeling the overwhelm of 20-foot tall LED Britney Spears staring down at you every time you go for a walk. Absinthe is still old-timey fun, just with fewer pasties than you’d expect from this locale.

Our No-Thing Sunday ended very early on Monday morning.

Today we’re off to Utah, and the very un-Vegas splendors of Zion National Park. I expect it to be picturesque and with limited Wi-Fi, so the next time I see you could very well be in Denver!